Public Intelligence

This directive provides Terms of Reference (TOR) for United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC); Naval Special Warfare Command (NAVSPECWARCOM); Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC), Joint Military Information Support Command (JMISC), and Joint Special Operations University (JSOU).

Field Manual (FM) 3-05.131 establishes Army special operations forces (ARSOF) doctrine for planning, coordinating, and executing noncombatant evacuation operations (NEOs) across the entire continuum of operational environments. NEOs are inherently joint operations. History demonstrates that joint forces conducted the vast majority of NEOs. This manual describes ARSOF operating within that context, thus the content of this manual mixes joint and Army terminology where appropriate. This manual does not duplicate or supplant established doctrine dealing with tactical or strategic operations, but it does provide a specific framework to apply that doctrine. Commanders tasked to conduct NEOs should ensure that their planning staff is familiar with referenced publications.

Field Manual (FM) 3-05.230, Special Forces Tactical Facilities, supports key United States (U.S.) Army Special Forces (SF) doctrine. An SF tactical facility (TACFAC) is defined as any secure urban or rural facility that enables Army special operations forces (ARSOF) to extend command and control (C2), provides support for operations, and allows operational elements to influence a specified area. SF TACFACs include a variety of secure locations for SF operations, including (but not limited to) firebases, camps, and team houses.

Special operations (SO) encompass the use of small units in direct or indirect military actions focused on strategic or operational objectives. These actions require units with combinations of specialized personnel, equipment, and tactics that exceed the routine capabilities of conventional military forces. SO are characterized by certain attributes that cumulatively distinguish them from conventional operations. SO are often politically sensitive missions where only the best-equipped and most proficient forces must be deployed to avoid detection and possible mission failure.

Unconventional warfare, or UW, is defined as activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow an occupying power or government by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary and guerrilla force in a denied area. Inherent in this type of operation are the inter-related lines of operation of armed conflict and subversion. The concept is perhaps best understood when thought of as a means to significantly degrade an adversary’s capabilities, by promoting insurrection or resistance within his area of control, thereby making him more vulnerable to a conventional military attack or more susceptible to political coercion. “UW includes military and paramilitary aspects of resistance movements. UW military activity represents the culmination of a successful effort to organize and mobilize the civil populace against a hostile government or occupying power. From the U.S. perspective, the intent is to develop and sustain these supported resistance organizations and to synchronize their activities to further U.S. national security objectives.”

A small but growing proxy war is underway in Mexico pitting US-assisted assassin teams composed of elite Mexican special operations soldiers against the leadership of an emerging cadre of independent drug organizations that are far more ruthless than the old-guard Mexican “cartels” that gave birth to them. These Mexican assassin teams now in the field for at least half a year, sources tell Narco News, are supported by a sophisticated US intelligence network composed of CIA and civilian US military operatives as well as covert special-forces soldiers under Pentagon command — which are helping to identify targets for the Mexican hit teams. Evidence of this intelligence support network has surfaced recently even in mainstream media reports, in outlets such as the New York Times and the Mexican publication El Universal — the former reporting that “CIA operatives and American civilian military employees have been posted at a Mexican military base,” and the latter reporting that elite US and Mexican troops engaged in joint training exercises in Colorado earlier this year.

The intent of U.S. UW efforts is to exploit a hostile power’s political, military, economic, and psychological vulnerabilities by developing and sustaining resistance forces to accomplish U.S. strategic objectives. Historically, the military concept for the employment of UW was primarily in support of resistance movements during general-war scenarios. While this concept remains valid, the operational environment since the end of World War II has increasingly required U.S. forces to conduct UW in scenarios short of general war (limited war). Enabling a resistance movement or insurgency entails the development of an underground and guerrilla forces, as well as supporting auxiliaries for each of these elements. Resistance movements or insurgencies always have an underground element. The armed component of these groups is the guerrilla force and is only present if the resistance transitions to conflict. The combined effects of two interrelated lines of effort largely generate the end result of a UW campaign. The efforts are armed conflict and subversion. Forces conduct armed conflict, normally in the form of guerrilla warfare, against the security apparatus of the host nation (HN) or occupying military. Conflict also includes operations that attack and degrade enemy morale, organizational cohesion, and operational effectiveness and separate the enemy from the population. Over time, these attacks degrade the ability of the HN or occupying military to project military power and exert control over the population. Subversion undermines the power of the government or occupying element by portraying it as incapable of effective governance to the population.

FOUO 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) Command Operations Brief, May 14, 2009.